Adrian Magson: No Help For The Dying

The white van made two measured circuits of the block, drifting like a shabby ghost beneath the street lights. A curtain of rain rippled down the windscreen and out across the tarmac, lending the road the sheen of molten liquorice. A digital clock in a shop window read 01.45.

The vehicle’s bodywork looked tired and scuffed beneath a layer of dirt, in sharp contrast to the precision sound of the engine. While this and the heavily tinted windows might have seemed unusual, to a casual onlooker it was simply another white van, doing what white vans do. On the third circuit, the vehicle slowed, swinging sharply into a side street. The tyres crunched through the nightly debris of fast-food cartons, discarded cigarette packets and greasy chip wrappers. A plastic water bottle resisted briefly before spinning away into the darkness.

‘Anywhere here.’ The man in the passenger seat took a bible from the dashboard, held it against his chest and caressed it absent-mindedly with his thumb.

The driver stopped across from a travel shop and a photo boutique. Wedged between them was a narrow alleyway like a gap in a row of teeth. No light reached into this recess, and whatever lay inside had been swallowed in a dark soup of shadow.

After a few moments the passenger door clicked open and the man with the bible stepped lightly to the ground. He stood for a moment, his breath vaporising in the cold air and quickly snatched away by the bitter March wind. The colourful glitter of Piccadilly, with its bright lights and electronic advertising panels, a relentless flow of people and noise, lay a short walk away. But none of that reached here.

The man was tall and thin, with rimless spectacles perched on a pale, bony face. His shoulders were loosely wrapped in a long coat covering dark pants and a black silk shirt with a mandarin collar, and on his feet he wore black, rubber-soled boots. He reached back into the van and lifted a silver metal flask from a box on the floor, then nodded to the driver and moved away. Seconds later he was swallowed by the dark.

He paused for his vision to adjust before stepping forward. He passed the windows of a pub, long shuttered and dead, and a network of scaffolding interlaced with ladders and boards. A row of wheelie bins waited with their accumulation of refuse. The smell was sharp and strong, a mix of old food, stale water and something unidentifiable. He ignored it and continued into the gloom, favouring the wall to his right where the darkness gathered like molasses. There were stirrings from the shadows and an empty can clattered away from his foot. Something drummed against cardboard, and further on someone coughed, a brief bark of sound quickly stifled. Another voice cursed in a soft protest, blurred by the effects of alcohol or drugs or the bitter cold.

The man stopped alongside a battered skip, its solid presence indicated by the glow-worm speck of a warning lamp. He transferred the bible to one coat pocket and the flask to the other, and took out a slim, black Maglite torch. Bending easily, he reached out with his free hand, finding the slippery texture of a sleeping bag, the fabric stiff with ingrained grease and dirt. He ran his fingers along the top and located the zip pull. It snagged briefly before running free with a faint purr. The smell from inside was sharp and feral. He flicked on the Maglite.

The bag’s occupant came awake with a cry of alarm. The man was ready; placing one knee on the sleeper’s torso, he clamped a strong hand over the mouth, choking off any further sounds. When the struggles ceased, he shone the torch on the white face and fearful, blinking eyes.

It was the right one.

He put the torch down and withdrew the silver flask. As he unscrewed the cup one-handed, a heady aroma of tomato filled the air around him. He bent close to the sleeping bag.

‘I’ve got some soup for you, kid,’ he whispered softly. ‘Nice hot soup.’ He squeezed the occupant’s face, cupping the mouth into an elongated ‘O’. The skin was soft to the touch, as yet untainted by dirt or infection. He tipped the flask in one movement, using his body’s weight to stifle the sudden eruption of movement beneath him, a hideous parody of a lover’s embrace. He ignored the choking sounds and what might have been the beginning of an agonised scream and placed his hand back over the mouth. A spot of soup forced its way between his fingers and stung his cheek, but he ignored that, too. He continued pouring until the flask was empty and the body lay still.

When he removed his hand, there was a gloop-gloop sound as the last of the thick liquid found its way down, followed by a pop of an air bubble rising to the top. He checked the pulse.

Nothing.

He zipped the sleeping bag and replaced the top of the flask, then stood for a moment like a priest over a grave.

‘Tough luck, kid,’ he murmured softly. ‘Seems Daddy didn’t want you back badly enough.’ He flicked the spot of soup from his cheek, then turned and walked back the way he had come. He stopped at the mouth of the alleyway. His eyes moved across the dark recesses one last time, then he took out the bible, and clutching it to his chest, walked back to the waiting van.

The telephone was insistent and annoying, jarring its way into Riley Gavin’s subconscious. She mumbled into the pillow and rolled over. One of these days, she thought, I’m going to invest in a machine that rings only in daylight. She opened her eyes and blinked. It was still dark, but with a faint blush of dawn sneaking across the ceiling. A car hissed by in the street below, heralding another day of dull, March weather. The clock radio flashed a blurred 05.00 onto the wall above her bedside cabinet in green gothic figures, a birthday present from her mother.

She kicked off the duvet and stumbled out of bed, stepping instinctively over a large tabby cat sprawled fast asleep in the living room doorway. ‘Fat lot of good, you are,’ she mumbled, and scooped up the handset.

‘Riley, sweetie.’ The syrupy tones of her agent, Donald Brask, slid down the line, and she forced herself to overcome the last few mental steps between sleep and wakefulness. Donald, God bless his mercenary heart, was all that stood between income and poverty. Whatever hour of the day or night, being nice to him guaranteed continued work.

‘Donald, don’t you know what time it is?’ she pleaded half-heartedly, and moved on auto-pilot into the kitchen, homing in on the kettle. She needed coffee. Donald only rang when he had an assignment for her, and he preferred her perky and wide awake, otherwise he got snarky and went into a camp sulk.

‘What’s up, dear heart? Did I drag you out of someone’s loving arms?’

‘I should be so lucky. What do you want?’ She watched as the cat wandered through and sat by the cupboard, cleaning itself with an air of casual patience as if time was of no consequence. It was all an act; the animal had once belonged to a former neighbour, but had assumed squatter’s rights and moved in once it knew where Riley kept the tins of food she’d bought in for its occasional visits. It was a subtle form of psychological bullying for which she had fallen big-time, and a habit that had stuck when she moved to Holland Park. Luckily the neighbour had given her the cat and her blessing. One day she might get as far as giving it a name.

‘Do you know a man called Henry Pearcy?’

‘Wait a second.’ She switched the handset onto loudspeaker and dropped it on the worktop, then busied herself with getting a tin out of the fridge and forking meat and jelly into a bowl. Amazing how a tin labelled rabbit could smell so much like a trawlerman’s armpits. The cat stopped licking and waited, its tail quivering like an antennae, then dived forward like a missile as she put the bowl on the floor. That was one problem solved.